Patients diagnosed with cancer are faced with costly and often painful treatment options. These treatments may be ineffective in a subpopulation of patients, and as a result, these patients endure these treatments without little or no therapeutic benefit. Some patients may react adversely to certain agents causing additional suffering and possibly death.
Ineffective treatment also is problematic because time is a key variable when treating cancer. A treatment provider has a far greater chance of containing and managing the disease if the cancer is diagnosed at an early stage and treated with a therapeutically effective agent. An agent may provide great therapeutic benefits if administered at an early stage of the disease; however, with the passage of time, the same agent may cease to be effective.
Colorectal cancer is an example of a condition where early diagnosis is key for effective treatment. Colorectal cancer is cancer that develops in the colon or the rectum. The walls of the colon and rectum have several layers of tissue. Colorectal cancer often starts in the innermost layer and can grow through some or all of the other layers; the stage (extent of spread) of a colorectal cancer depends to a great degree on how deeply it has grown into these layers.
Chemotherapy is often used for treating colorectal cancer. Irinotecan hydrochloride (CAMPTOSAR®) is a chemotherapeutic agent indicated for first-line therapy of colorectal cancers. As with many chemotherapeutic agents, administration of irinotecan hydrochloride (“irinotecan”) often causes deleterious side effects for the patient, and some patients do not respond well to the treatment. Some patients thus undergo treatment with irinotecan and suffer the painful side effects only to later realize that the agent has not been therapeutically beneficial to their condition. In addition to the unnecessary suffering, critical time is lost in determining an alternative treatment.